A SECRET MISSION TO ---- the DEATH STAR

[G+_Alvin Carroll]

A SECRET MISSION TO ---- the DEATH STAR

 

The AT&T "Mobility" Store looked like a car lot.  Unlike the usual, take a number and wait, there was staff a-plenty, hanging at the door, hanging on the door, and all but dragging customers to -

 

THE HTC ONE

 

Even though that's been out at leat a few days, and today, April 27, was release date for the S4,

 

Hmmm

 

My sales C1PO did let me go directly to the S4 (I didn't tell her I'd seen the HTC One earlier in the week at Bust Buy).

 

Then she started, if not exactly trash talking the S4, selling the One.

 

Now I get that the One is a nice phone.

 

And I wish HTC well.  Truly I do.  My original HTC Nexus One is actually still a fine device now used as an alarm clock and music player, but it works just perfectly and has held up strongly through several years of abuse.

 

But while I could live with the HTC One, I didn't much like it.  Where bizarre complaints are leveled at Samsung's plastic construction, I found the HTC's highly promoted all aluminum case had sharp, not razor sharp, but still less than pleasant, edges.

 

Its screen is beautiful.  Its non-replaceable battery probably not up to day's use.

 

But the HTC One Camera?  Oh, my ATT Rep assured me it was so much better than the S4's.

 

Which raised the fur on my back and my claws from retraction.

 

Well, yes, the HTC One camera is only 4 megapixels.

 

But get this, "they're ULTRA megapixels."

 

The young she-droid finally gave up trying to stuff the nonsense she had learned in her training down my gullet.  

 

I get there are people who want the HTC One because they like that it looks like a giant iPhone.  And that it's cut from a block of aluminum, "just like the iPhone."

 

And don't care that iFixit gave it the lowest repairability score "to date" while reporting the S4 is "surprisingly easy" to repair.

 

After all, who would EVER want to repair a $600 phone?

 

I get that there are people perfectly happy that they can't replace its battery and are happy to rely on the $200 bi-annual upgrade and just toss the old phone,

 

I get that because Google has deprecated the SD Card advantage Android has over iOS some don't care they're being robbed by the price of extra internal storage.

 

I get that if you want a hand heater for attending a Green Bay Backer game in December at Green Bay, the HTC One will do the job, until its battery runs down.  First quarter?

 

But for me, the lighter Sammie with better camera, replaceable battery, cooler to the touch, and with an SD card slot I can use to carry 64 MB of music and not run into my "bandwidth cap" is the better choice.  

 

Even if the guy next to me at the coffee shop won't realize I have a new S4 because it looks just like his "old" S3.

 

Finally, on the Ultrapixel front, the HTC One camera is designed for and does do better than the S4 in low light.

 

Its ULTRAPIXEL photos will look just fine on Facebook, or, yes, Google Plus.  And if that's enough for you, it will serve you well.

 

"The fast lens combined with optical image stabilization means the HTC is a good device for capturing low light scenes -- if you can live with the 4MP output."

 

ULTRAPIXELS!

http://connect.dpreview.com/post/9219904986/shootout-samsunggalaxys4-vs-htcone-vs-iphone5-vs-lumia920

[G+_Fred Elfeline]

Thanks, Lorri Helms 

 

The absolute worst I've read is this from David Pierce at the Verge:

 

"Where Apple and HTC have both made beautiful, well-made, high-quality phones, the GS4 has Samsung back in the land of cheap, plasticky handsets. It looks for all the world like the Galaxy S III . . .

 

I don't like holding this phone, and I can't overstate how much that informs the experience of using it. It makes an awful first impression, slippery and slimy and simply unpleasant in your hand."

 

Now I guess the "universal we" could just agree that how an object feels in the hand is subjective.  

 

It would be one thing if David had simply written, "I much prefer the feel of the HTC One, and I encourage readers to go feel how both it and the S4 feel in your own hand before making a decision between them."

 

But. Nope. He has to slime the S4 . . . 

 

And in truth, David, if you buy the non-repairable HTC One, you BETTER buy a really good case for it, just as I will if I buy an S4.

 

So now that we're both sensibly putitng our $600 phones in protective cases, how about reviewing the phones themselves?

 

Without whatever prejudice you have against the Samsung because it looks like an earlier model (people loved) and isn't blatantly emulating the beloved iPhone?